Saturday, October 20, 2012

abstract of Blum's Introduction to Giordano Bruno

"Giordano
Bruno (1548-1600) was a philosopher in his own right. However, he was
famous through the centuries due to his execution as a heretic. His
pronouncements against teachings of the Catholic Church, his defence of
the cosmology of Nicholas Copernicus, and his provocative personality,
all this made him a paradigmatic figure of modernity. Bruno’s way of
philosophizing is not looking for outright solutions but rather for the
depth of the problems; he knows his predecessors and their strategies as
well as their weaknesses, which he exposes satirically. This
introduction helps to identify the original thought of Bruno who proudly
said about himself: “Philosophy is my profession!” His major
achievements concern the creativity of the human mind studied through
the theory of memory, the infinity of the world, and the discovery of
atomism for modernity. He never held a permanent office within or
without the academic world. Therefore, the way of thinking of this
“Knight Errant of Philosophy” will be presented along the stations of
his journey through Western Europe.

Chapters
Pleasant Campania: Education Before and In the Convent
Fleeing into Exile—Northern Italy, Geneva, Toulouse: Astronomy as a Means of Earning a Living
Paris: The Power of Memory
Off to London: Satire, Metaphysics, and Ethics in Italian
God Is Not Idle: Infinite Possibilities and Infinite Reality
Religion and Ethics for the People and the Hero
Return to Paris: Challenging Mathematics and Aristotelianism
“Houses of Wisdom” in Germany: History, Magic, and Atomism
Off to Venice: The Trial of the Heretic
Afterlife: From Heretic to Hermeticist